Google Updates and SERP Changes - August 2018

[yollo03]

System: The following 2 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4909313.htm [webmasterworld.com] by robert_charlton - 3:47 am on Aug 1, 2018 (PDT -8)

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HERE WE GO! Get your sit belts on:

Google Search Algorithm August 1st Update Rolling Out Now; Might Be A Big One
Aug 1, 2018
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-algorithm-update-26141.html [seroundtable.com]




[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:57 am (utc) on Aug 1, 2018]

[Halaspike]

@seo21 if you want to target only the UK, you should definitely change the domain to .co.uk

[Dimitri]

Additionally to Halaspike suggestion, you can set the target country in the GSC, this is "excessively" efficient. By excessively , I mean, that you'll improve your ranking at Google.co.uk (considering the content of your site is good and relevant, of course), but you'll loose nearly all your ranking at other countries.

[pritz]

Google does not caching some website, showing error 404.

For Example:

Site:habiledata.com

It shows 404. Does it effect the Ranking. How to deal with this?

[seo21]

@ Dimitri+ target country was set years ago :-(

[Dimitri]

Does it effect the Ranking.

No.

How to deal with this?

Nothing to do. Eventually, you can try a fetch like GoogleBot, and resubmit a page, to see if it helps, but I doubt.

@ Dimitri+ target country was set years ago :-(

Ok. Did you review your site, to be sure it sends all the "signals" telling Google that it targets the UK ? Like Lang en-gb , (but I don't think it has a huge importance).
Is your site hosted in the UK ? (UK IP)

[seo21]

@pritz+ No it doesn't affect rankings. It does this if you have moved over to mobile-first indexing too.

[cr1m]

How to deal with this?

Change HTTPS to HTTP in front of the website address (not in front of the webcache domain)

[seo21]

@Dimitri+ Yes its en-gb and UK IP etc. I think the issue is quality related as its been hit at host level not page level and thus Panda-like.

Odd how its No1 in google.com though! Ive also seen US sites appear in UK searches.

[Halaspike]

@seo21 you need to change from generic top-level domain (.com) to country-coded top-level domain (.uk) & you should be back on top, provided you have what the searcher is looking for & it's presented in a very user friendly way.

[pritz]

Change HTTPS to HTTP in front of the website address (not in front of the webcache domain)

Please explain more on this.

[cr1m]

Please explain more on this.

When you're trying to see Google's cache of your page, you get to a page like:
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:61HE9KcELUkJ:https://www.domain.com/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ee
which returns a 404 error.

if you change HTTPS to HTTP in front of www.domain.com, you get a working page with cache of given website

[yollo03]

My keywords that got hit by the update are slowly, slowly, slowly improving. One of my main keywords got knocked to position 150, its not at 100. Not a huge difference I know but at least its moving. Other keywords are also improving slowly. I hope this is the beginning of positive trend for me.

[mosxu]

@seo21

IP you host your site is the location plus your business location, it doesn’t have to be a co.uk

I would avoid redirects especially after this August update

[KaseyM]

Big ole drop today. Could just be because of the niche I'm in but worthy of note.

[Martin Ice Web]

Next big hit. This took away another 30%, so we are down from google organics traffic by 70%.
Ecom not medical related.
The good thing is, that all the buyers seem to be at amazon right now. We gained 150% amazon sales since this update.
It is time to cut of google spendings and put all our efforts into amazon MP.

Our niche is such a mess right now. Only brands with unreachable bad content and most of the pages are silly category pages. Sites with lots of 404s, 410s, without title but have a backlink from a brand or are driven by a brand rules.
One of the badest experience we ever saw with google.

[massimodefilippo]

Yes, I agree, we must move to Yandex, amazon and facebook.
I am very disappointed to google now, never happened something like this since 2009, when I created my website.

[BushyTop]

Anyone seeing a shake up?

[elguiri]

I see quite a lot of movement yesterday across 7-8 sites that I'm watching. Some up, some down. US market.

[Sumeet]

Hi

I am working on 4 websites and all four websites direct traffic drop huge anyone let me know, what happen to please.

[edited by: Sumeet at 10:17 am (utc) on Aug 24, 2018]

[BushyTop]

I'm seeing results change again on the hour.

[JesterMagic]

Seeing a lot of the current month and year add to info pages titles in our niche. This one site has sky rocked in our niche over the last few months, went to page 1 from out of no where for a lot of keywords . The layout is really well done and the content is good sometimes. They have all the SEO tricks in play. The problem is the content is never updated but they update the title and change the published date. I see this all the time from other competitors as well. Even for products or services that are either closed (and have been for over half a year) or discontinued. There is no intelligence behind Google AI.

[mara89]

i had more no of major keywords position dropped ( max top 1 & 2 Position into 4 & 5 - Not Medical related queries) in this Aug 1st Week Update. Can any help in that.

As per RankRanger ( [prntscr.com...] ) Last Few Days no of Ads based queries are increased. this means more no of site owners are moved into ad-words or More Users click & engage Top Text-based Ads. Can you any one Clarify that.

[penitentman]

i had more no of major keywords position dropped ( max top 1 & 2 Position into 4 & 5 - Not Medical related queries) in this Aug 1st Week Update. Can any help in that.

As per RankRanger ( [prntscr.com...] ) Last Few Days no of Ads based queries are increased. this means more no of site owners are moved into ad-words or More Users click & engage Top Text-based Ads. Can you any one Clarify that

I'm sorry, come again?

[yollo03]

Nothing special to report about, there is a minor improvement but nothing to go and tell the parents about. I hope google will revise this soon, I am sure they will at some point, the sooner the better.

[HammerDown]

I was asked not to post any links so Google <snip: tool-name google xyz update data> for what I consider to be exactly what I asked for in terms of analyzing before-and-after data on sites most impacted.

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Mods Note: HammerDown - When we ask you not to post links in search forum, that assumes that you know that we know that there are other ways to identify a page. Because we like to keep our forum promotion-free, we ask new users to avoid posting specifics until we have a better sense of who you are, Additionally, we like to keep the substance of our discussions here, in our threads, and not have the forum become a list of links to seo promotion blogs.

Over the years, we've eased up on our posting restrictions... but, just so you know, this is how our guidelines used to read, and this is what's implied when we ask you not to post links....

1. Do not post links to a specific website (yours or any other) or suggest a search query, search words, or any search phrase. No hints. No clues. This means no links, domain names, screen shots, specific search terms, or drawing attention to your profile.

I've looked at the page you suggested, and decided to allow it, but with this caution to new members here that... it's not Google, and it may not in any way represent how Google looks at pages or backlinks. What I see appears to be a tool suite that can graph lots of correlations. It could be hi-tech snake oil, or it could be as well-thought out as Majestic. It could be the next semrush, or the next hrefs, or moz. YMMV.

That said, here's the link to the page. Please don't post any more of them.

[DATA] 100+ Sites Impacted By Google Medic Update Analyzed
[canirank.com...]

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 2:47 am (utc) on Aug 25, 2018]

[Leosghost]

I suspect that English is not mara89's first language..But, I think I recognise the structure..so..I think what mara89 meant was..

I had more/ large numbers of major keywords positions which dropped ( normally top 1 & 2 Position dropped to positions 4 & 5 - these are not medical related queries) in this Aug 1st Week Update. Can anyone advise or shed any light on these drops.

As per RankRanger ( [prntscr.com...] *) In the last few days the amount of traffic via Ads has increased. This means more site owners are moved into ad-words or more users are now clicking the Text-based Ads at top of SERPs.is this what is happening ?

mara89..you need to put your location on your profile..what country are you in ? What language is your site in ?

I don't know Rank Ranger, but that ( at the print screen link ) looks like a graph showing the percentage of visitors acquired via ads as opposed to organic ?

ps mara89..don't worry about your English, most people here probably read , write or speak your language far less well than you read, write or speak English :)

HTH ( btw if that was not what you wanted to say..my apologies )

[HammerDown]

If you're in alternative health like me, < snip > the previously cited page suggests that in the Medic Update Google decided they couldn’t risk passionate alternative viewpoints overwhelming the search results on sensitive YMYL topics.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:41 am (utc) on Aug 25, 2018]
[edit reason] removed specifics intended to be search terms [/edit]

[samwest]

zombie traffic high, ending the worst week of the year so far. Looks like even the apparent quotas are gone now. Usually well into the seasonal upswing. SERPs stable, but traffic quality very poor.

[whoa182]

The problem is the content is never updated but they update the title and change the published date. I see this all the time from other competitors as well.

It's deceitful SEO tactic to get a higher CTR. I'm surprised that Google hasn't dealt with it already.

[Leosghost]

BBC do it all the time..irritating when you see the same article using different titles on different days, sometimes even during the same day.